Digital Cake Crafting: Children's Book eReader Cover

I’m going through a crafting phase of upcycling old books, especially children’s books. I love the nostalgia of looking through all of the books I read as a kid. I’ve been making envelopes and then making confetti with the leftover parts of the pages, but haven’t found a use for the covers yet. I had an idea to make an eReader cover, and after finding a tutorial on Instructables (click to go to tutorial) I decided to give it a shot.

I have a cover for my Kindle, but my mom just purchased her Nook not too long ago and needs a nice durable cover for traveling. Since she has the Nook at her house, I called and got dimensions of the Nook and then sat down to make the cover. I made a template of the Nook's dimensions out of an old cereal box to help me with placement within the book.

Image showing inside of eReader Cover - felt on both sides, 45 degree corners, and white elastic to hold the eReader

I read through the tutorial and then followed it as best as I could remember. I used a cereal box wrapped in felt as the padding on both sides, trimmed the corners at 45 degrees, and added the elastic at about an inch from each corner.

Side view of the eReader cover - it's a little bulky looking

When it’s closed, it looks a little bulky. With the Nook inside, it looks even more bulky and just doesn't quite look right. Another problem with this is that the elastic corners that are supposed to hold the Nook in place don’t fit. The Nook simple touch, or whatever version it is, has very rounded corners with a radius larger than I anticipated.

Front view of the eReader cover without the elastic closed

Sorry, I don’t have any photos of the Nook inside the case because I was frustrated and left it at my mom’s. I also just quickly took photos before I headed out the door, so these aren't the best photos.

Next time I make one of these I’ll be sure to have the real Nook next to me so I can make sure it will actually fit. I’ll also only put the thick padding on one side or hollow out one side so it will fit better.

It looks super cute.. when the Nook isn’t inside. I’ll post a better tutorial if I make another one, but if you want to make your own then follow the original tutorial and you should do fine. I would also recommend not using a book with such a small binding and it should help with the bulkiness.

I might make another eReader Cover that addresses the problems I came across with the first one, but I'm trying to think of other ideas to reuse the book covers. I'm thinking of trying to make a clutch or purse!